


i have seen no other (who compares with you)

by devereauxing



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: M/M, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 13:23:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18572356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devereauxing/pseuds/devereauxing
Summary: sometimes i writer joger drabbles on tumblr, and i need somewhere to keep them





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> anon: I love all your Joger headcanons (Roger remembering birthdays and anniversaries and John making doctors’ appointments, you are reading my mind!!! Please fic or minific!!!) Now definitely headcanoning Roger and John dealing with touring frustrations by going off on their own to look at the World Pencil Museum or Birthplace of The Man Who Invented The Top Hat and coming back all happy and giggly and solemnly presenting Freddie & Brian & all the crew with pencils or top hat brooches as souvenirs
> 
> ((70s era))

"I'm fine," said Roger from the sofa, despite the multiple blankets he had draped over himself. He looked like a strange elf, all pointy chin and pale skin, peeking out from under a mountain of barely strung together wool. "It's a cold."

John squinted at him, the phone clutched in his hand as he stood by the wall where it was wired.

"I'm fine," Roger repeated, his conviction only slightly undermined by the scratchy quality that overtook his usual soft tone midway through the declaration.

"Hello? Hello? This is Northway Medical Centre, Janice speaking," came the voice from the speaker John had held to his ear.

Roger widened his eyes, a clear attempt to appear more trustworthy.

"Hello," said John into the telephone, shaking his head at Roger who slumped further into his blanket fortress. "I would like to make an appointment?"

"Oh!" the lady, Janice, said. "Certainly. Are you an existing patient?"

"Yes," replied John, ignoring Roger as he groaned dramatically and flopped fully into a horizontal position on the sofa. He coughed, pitifully attempting to hide the sound in his numerous blankets - all of which had been donated by Freddie during his short lived crocheting phase. "It's for a Roger Taylor?"

"Hmm," said Janice, and the faint sound of a filing cabinet being opened and flipped through came across the receiver. "T, T, Taylor! Roger M?"

"That's him," said John, watching impassively as Roger drew the blankets over his face. "As soon as possible would be best. He's had a low grade fever for a few days, and a cough for about a week or so."

"We have an availability tomorrow morning at 11," Janice said, sounding distracted. "Can I just confirm quickly that you're a family member?"

"Yes," said John, with a roll of his eyes and an impatient tap of his foot. "I'm his Uncle Frederick."

An unattractive snort, followed by another bout of horribly deep sounding coughs, emanated from under the blankets on the sofa. Roger's head poked out from under a particularly large and ungainly hole as he mouthed, "Uncle Frederick?"

"Roger's all booked in for tomorrow at 11, Frederick," said Janice, sounding inappropriately happy for someone who most likely spent the vast majority of their time talking to the miserably ill population of the world. "We'll see young Roger then!"

"Thank you, Janice," John replied drily, one eyebrow raised as Roger devolved into peals of painful sounding laughter. "Young Roger will certainly see you then."

"Why," said Roger breathily, something not too difficult given the wheezing his lungs had taken to, too-long fringe stuck to his sweaty brow. "Uncle Frederick!"

"You're such a prick," said John, hanging up the phone to the sound of Janice's slightly shocked inhalation and making his way over. "If you'd just made the bloody appointment like you said you had last week-"

"The line was busy!" Roger protested, lifting his legs for John to settle down on the sofa. "I couldn't get through!"

"And you were so busy, you couldn't possibly ring back," John muttered, settling Roger's legs back down on his lap. He smoothed the blankets so they covered Roger's feet again - Roger couldn't stand having his feet out in the cold air when he was sleeping, and when he was sick he wasn't all that much better. Not at all better, in fact, just louder.

"I was!" Roger insisted, prodding at his thigh with his sock-clad toes even as he sunk even further into their ridiculously soft sofa. Roger had found it in some junk antique store with Freddie, beaten him to the punch with what John had heard was a particularly vicious round of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and hauled it home with the help of two auspiciously kind gentlemen who had been none too happy to be sent off packing with little more than a cup of tea for their work.

"Really," sighed John, even as he began rubbing Roger's feet. He liked to pretend he was above all of Roger's little attention-seeking tricks, but at the end of the day he knew the only thing that sent him apart from all the other sad, soppy eyed buggers was that Roger fell his tricks too. "And what were you so busy with while I was at my mum's, then?"

"Well," said Roger, preening like a cat even as his skin glistened with the sickly sheen of feverish discomfort. "I'm sure you forgot, but it was the adoption date of Oscar and Tiffany last week."

John froze.

"Oh?" he said, trepidously.

Just six months ago on an otherwise unassuming Sunday afternoon he, Roger, and Brian had had a huge blow up fight over the drumline of a song they'd - as it turned out - ended up scrapping. This was, of course, prior to his and Roger's moving in together which had allowed the entire affair to blow completely out of proportion. Instead of coming home to a bowl of peanuts - their shells all decorated with doodles of Brian's ridiculous curls - which would have allowed his anger to stream out of him as if it had hardly ever been there, or arriving home first to quickly whip up an impromptu sci-fi marathon in the living room which would have had Roger smiling softly at him in the early hours of the morning - instead of any of that, they had gone home to their respective flats and they had stewed.

Which.

Look, okay, Roger and John? They worked. God knew how, Freddie and Brian certainly couldn't understand it - but they did. The perfect mix of passion and patience; stubbornness and compromise; heat and icy cold. The problem was, of course: embers remain and leave you with blistered fingertips; ice will leave you with raised welts.

And, well. they'd gone home and they'd stewed and. It had been Tom's adoption day on the Thursday.

John? He was good with bills. He was great with waking up and remembering that oh, yes, he was due for a vaccination. Birthdays and anniversaries, however? It was as if he had a sieve for a brain. Back when he had dated, however briefly, women it had been something easily blamed on being male. Men didn't remember these things, they weren't important. Brian, he knew, agreed.

Roger did not.

Roger couldn't remember to pick up sugar on his way back from his classes. Hell, Roger couldn't remember to pick up sugar when that was specifically what he had been sent out to buy (Shrove Tuesday's pancakes had been dusted with sherbert instead of sugar and lemon. It had worked oddly well). What Roger could remember, however? Birthday's, anniversaries - anniversaries of things that weren't worth celebrating, even. Their first date? John got a card. The first time they'd fucked in the first bathroom stall of the pub around the corner? A supreme pizza. A month of dating? A chocolate bar. The first time they'd fucked in the second bathroom stall of the pub around the corner? A supreme pizza with extra sausage.

Frankly, John was bloody grateful that Brian's birthday was just before Roger's. It left him with just enough time to prepare when he inevitably forgot.

But. This one time. They had gone back to their flats and they had stewed.

Freddie had been off doing god knows what, Brian had ridiculously intelligent things to do (which they couldn't _possibly_ understand), and John sat in his flat and he determinedly did not call. And neither did Roger.

Instead, Roger had sent a card for Tom's adoption birthday.

And he hadn't called Brian to remind him. He hadn't called John to remind him; hadn't signed John's name at the bottom next to his own with a flourish as he had gotten in the habit over the past few months, a small declaration of togetherness that had left John breathless the first time he'd seen it. No, Roger had sent a card. Had sent a card just from him. And all had been calm. All had been fine.

Until Freddie got home from his... whatever the hell it was Freddie did when they weren't around, and realised that no-one other than Roger had remembered Tom's adoption birthday.

"Yeah," said Roger, toes digging ever deeper into John's thigh. "Both of them. One day apart."

"Hmm," said John, running a hand over Roger's ankle. "I suppose you were quite busy."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anon: Hey.... got any more of that... Joger first kiss??? (And fuck tbh)
> 
> ((70s era? could be modern))

The thing about sharing a bed with Roger is that he was a fucking blanket hog of the tenth degree. You could fight it, in which case you would most likely find yourself sprawled on the floor without Roger so much as waking up, or you could accept it. John wouldn't call himself a coward by any means, but he'd seen some of the bruises Brian had sported during the week Freddie and Roger's flat had been being treated for a (particularly virulent) termite problem. He'd looked like he'd gone three rounds with Muhammad Ali, not shared a bed with a man he could, and had, picked up on more than one occasion during a night out that had gone tits up - Mercury and Taylor style. Sometimes not fighting was really the best option. This was one of these times.

And so, for the majority of the past couple of months, John had been waking up in pretty much the same position: playing big spoon to a blanket burrito that was masquerading as a bedmate. Which was, he insisted later, why he had been so disorientated to find himself both under the blanket and also the little spoon. Of course he thought he was dreaming, such an occurrence had happened at exactly no point before now.

The summer was coming to an end now, the morning sun rising just a little weaker now that the seasons were beginning to turn. During the summer, John's bedroom was inconveniently placed: the sun streamed in full force through the window, leaving no hiding place for those who might wish to lounge in the haze of sleepy in-betweens unless they were willing to burrow themselves under the blankets and accept the stifling heat as recompense for a little darkness. Roger was generally willing, John was most definitely not. Given that Roger's surjourns into his bed had begun as a result of John's long nights out at discos, this had meant Freddie and Brian putting up with a grumpier than usual bassist until the nights of dancing had tapered off. Sleep deprivation was a bitch, and so was John when he wanted to be.

Roger, of course, had been in the habit of turning up to rehearsals still sleep rumpled and incredibly smug. It would have been more irritating if it weren't for the way the creases of John's bed linens on his cheeks had had his stomach doing flips, the smell of his shampoo lingering in Roger's hair as he brushed by him to get to his kit.

But now that the summer was ending, the sun had dimmed to a soft glow in the earlier hours. It was beautiful to wake up to, the room illuminated in soft purples and pinks; dust motes hanging in the air like the last few stars that shone through the dawn horizon. And on this morning, to find himself pressed firmly against Roger with no barrier between them. The haze of dawn, the haze of sleep, the haze of Roger. Trying to see clearly through it all would have been an impossibility for a greater man, let alone John.

"Good morning," Roger murmured, hand light and uncontrived on his hip. The kind of casual intimacy that comes from sharing a space with someone for long enough that their space becomes merely an extension of your own. And John, still inhabiting the inbetween of the twilight dawn, rolled over to greet him.

Roger's hand rolled over the planes of his stomach, where his t-shirt had rucked up in the night to end up halfway up his chest in imitation of the crop tops that Freddie had most recently been attempting to convince Roger he had the perfect shape for, coming to rest on the opposite hip fluidly. John reached up to cradle his cheek, pulling him down for a kiss. Roger's mouth fell open easily and without hesitation; the trust that existed between them making him pliant, the vestiges of rest still smoothing the edges of consciousness ending any hesitation before it had time to take root. John smoothed a thumb over his cheekbone, sucking just ever slightly on his bottom lip as he pulled away and let his head fall down onto Roger's chest; for a moment, in the very back of his mind where thoughts were once again beginning to spark as daylight attempted to bring him fully into its fold, he allowed himself to consider with detached amusement the way his feet were falling off of the bottom of the mattress, Roger's feet curled somewhere around his calves.

Under his cheek he could feel Roger's breathing, soothing him back into the full embrace of sleep, slow and smoo... no, not quite smooth. The rattle was still there, he had had a cold the week before last. John had told him to tell him if his chest still ached, that he would have to go to the doctor's. Given how much he smoked, he couldn't be too careful about pneu-

Reality, as it was ever wont to do, came crashing in with all the subtlety of Freddie in drag.

He pushed away from Roger hurriedly, rolling over with such speed that he completely misjudged the edge of the mattress and fell off with the grace of a drunk elephant. Or, again, the grace of Freddie in drag. Worriedly he peeked over the edge of the mattress at Roger.

Roger was laid still on the bed, half propped up against the headboard where he had left him, one hand raised to his lips and looking vaguely shellshocked. He was looking back at John, eyes wide.

"Shit," said John, eloquent until the last. "Fuck, I'm so sorry."

"You are?" said Roger, words muffled slightly by the fingers he still had pressed to his mouth. John couldn't help but notice his lips, what could be seen of them from behind his hand, were slightly rosier than usual. Despite the circumstances he couldn't help but feel glad that he knew now what it was like to look at a freshly kissed Roger and know it had been him that had put a flush to his face rather than some nameless bird at a seedy bar they wouldn't remember the name of come morning.

"I, uh," John stammered as he tried to come up with an acceptable excuse. _I thought I was dreaming_ would most likely lead to questions such as, well why were you dreaming of kissing me, mate? "I thought you were someone else."

Roger's brow furrowed as he watched John clamber to his legs awkwardly, praying that his morning wood (flagging at a truly impressive speed given his utter mortification, though perhaps not as quickly as it may have if he hadn't just kissed the man he'd been vaguely in love with for months now) wasn't noticeable. They'd been sharing a bed for a while now, but he hadn't kissed Roger out of nowhere on any of the other morning's so he supposed it could have different connotations now.

"Who?" Roger asked, looking vaguely confused. "You haven't been seeing anyone, Deaks. I basically live here, I'd know."

"Um," said John, desperately trying to think of anyone that might be even sort of believable.

"'Cause that kiss," said Roger, building up steam now and looking less confused and more.... smug. "That was a kiss for someone you wanna shag, John. Or someone you already have."

Panic stricken, John shook his head: "Well, obviously I haven't shagged you."

"Do you not want to?" asked Roger, inching closer to the edge of the mattress with a sly smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. His tongue darted out briefly, licking exactly where John had sucked only a minute or so before. John tried valiantly not to stare.

"I mean," spluttered John, trying to keep from fiddling with his hands and unsure as where to look. "Of course not."

"Oh," said Roger, brushing his thumb against his lip thoughtfully. He sat up on his knees, the blanket pooling around him. "That's a shame."

"Yea-," John started, eyes firmly directed out of the window. "Wait, what?"

Looking down, he met Roger's gaze again. Roger, who was still stained pink: from the sunrise which was painting the room in watercolours, and from a flush which was stretching up his neck and just about visible under the stretched out collar of his shirt. Roger, who certainly had none of the same qualms as John about whether or not his arousal was visible if the spread set of his legs was anything to go by. Roger, who was watching him with all too much amusement.

"What?" John repeated faintly as Roger reached out to grip his hips, firmly this time - like a brand.

"John," Roger said, slow and patient. "If you don’t shut up and kiss me like that again, I’m not going to suck your cock. And let me tell you, that would be a damn shame for the both of us."


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anon: Okay, the High School AU??? Love it. Roger seems to be the person that downplays their own intelligence with a sharp tongue and a kinda blasé attitude (kinda fits for nowadays as well, doesn't it), hence not many people in that school knowing the boy has brains. But! John probably provides the needed emotional/intellectual challenge (vice versa, really), so yeah. But not even Freddie figured it out??? How??? Were Joger subtle????
> 
> me: to be fair roger totally is coasting. naturally intelligent and generally bored with school and he’s getting good enough grades to get into a good college without putting in all that much effort so……. why really bother ya know? so yeah he’s not raising his hand in class or turning up to study sessions but he’s still sitting nice and cosy in the higher level classes. johns p much the same tbh except he’s also involved with extracurricular shit like the school band, he’s a member of their lgbt+ club, and learning fuckin spanish after hours for some reason.
> 
> roger is boycotting the lgbt+ club after an incident involving his 100% natural and healthy brownies (gluten free!) that he made for their fundraiser last year.

“You can’t,” Freddie sighed, rubbing at his temple. He was sat at the head of the table and Roger thought, perhaps uncharitably, that the only thing missing from the scene was a crown and sceptre as he presided over the latest lgbt+ club meeting. “You can’t  _ban_  someone from lgbt+ club, Paul. It doesn’t work like that, it’s not like we kick him out and he turns straight.”

“If that’s the way it worked,” Brian, lgbt+ club treasurer and all round arch enemy of Paul Prenter for reasons well known (there had been a snapchat video and copious amounts of cheap vodka involved), murmured under his breath. “We’d have kicked you out years ago.”

“ _And,”_ Freddie continued, determinedly ignoring the loud exclamation of outrage from Paul. “To be fair Roger  _did_  raise more money then all of the rest of you put together.”

“Illegally!” Paul hissed, leaning forward as if the room were being staked out by England’s finest just oh-so-determined to crack down on the cannabis use of some random white kid.

Roger rolled his eyes and stretched his arms out, letting his fingers trail assholishly down Prenter’s shoulder and taking a special kind of delight in the way Prenter wrenched backwards and away from him. “Look, half the fucking teachers were lining up at my stall, mate. Practically state sanctioned.”

In the corner John from his Chemistry class let out a snort before ducking his head to hide behind his hair as Prenter spluttered at him, eyes wide: “He has to go, Freddie! Or I know I won’t be voting you in as president-

(“Queen,” Roger muttered.)

In the next elections! And I won’t be the only one!”

Across the table Jim was giving him a hefty side eye as Veronica, also in the unfortunate position of being sat next to the prick, physically shuffled her chair around the corner of the table to separate herself from him.

Freddie sighed, “Paul-“

“Oh, for fucks sake,” Roger interrupted, shoving his chair back from the table and standing. He grabbed his coat off of the back of his chair, a leopard print fluffy monstrosity that he absolutely  _adored,_ and gave Freddie a low curtesy. “I quit, you happy?”

“Roger, no!” Freddie exclaimed, looking quite horrified at the prospect. Next to him Brian had already crossed his name from the member list. Sometimes Roger thought that Brian had discovered he liked dick for the first time fiddling about with the giant stick that was rammed up his arse.

“Don’t be like that, Roger,” said Phoebe, eyes wet.

Christ, he was quitting a club not a cult.

“Worry not, you pretty things,” he blustered, shrugging into his coat and shoving his shades on his face. “I will remain a lover of cock for all my days whether or not I sit in this room once a week trying to come up with polite excuses not to eat the rocks marauding as Chrissie’s latest vegan baking attempt.”

Chrissie looked taken aback.

“I’m sorry, love,” Roger continued with a so-so tilt of the head. “But it had to be said. I’ve heard you’re a champion pussy eater and, I think I speak for everyone here when I say, I just wish that natural talent was present in your cooking. Joe near lost a tooth last week. Moisture, as it turns out, is a necessary component in both activities.”

With that said he turned, letting his coat swish behind him, and left them to the rest of their meeting.

**Author's Note:**

> over @candidroger on tumblr, #1 joger hoe despite what my multi-chap maylor fic would have you think


End file.
